What’s up with us guys?

In my time working with couples I’ve seen a pattern – not with every couple that has come to me for counseling, but this one pattern repeats itself...in couple after couple.

It goes like this:

Of the two, the wife or girlfriend has been the most unhappy – reporting that she’s been unhappy with some aspect of the husband’s or boyfriend’s behavior and tells me she’s tried telling him she’s unhappy, but he’s not heard her – she knows this because he’s not acknowledged to her that he’s heard her, and hasn’t changed his behaviors – I then think, ‘well, maybe she’s not telling him what she’s unhappy about very clearly, or she’s giving him ‘mixed messages’ (she tells him she’s unhappy with his behavior one time, and then she’ll give him a message that what he’s doing is ok); but, when I have asked her what she’s done to tell him she is unhappy, she has usually been pretty clear and consistently giving him the same message – ‘I don’t like it when you do ____’ (fill in the blank with a behavior)
She’s been unhappy for a while – usually 6 months or more.

The husband or boyfriend is stunned that she’s unhappy with him. And usually he’s been pretty happy in the relationship.

Now, if what I’ve just said sounds sexist, I’d agree with you. It does. Except, with a lot of couples, it’s also true.

So, I spend time helping the couple communicate in a clear way. One person says something to the other, and, especially when therapy is just starting, I’ll ask the other person what they heard and ask them to repeat the message back. Which brings up another interesting thing – often times, we guys completely miss what’s being said to us. What are we thinking??? So, when, in this case the guy repeats back what he heard his wife or girlfriend say, and it’s really off the mark, she becomes frustrated, often time looking at me and usually says something like, ‘see? He never listens to me!!’ Meanwhile, the guy sits there with this hangdog look on his face, clearly indicating he didn’t get the message.

And what she said to him usually isn’t very complicated. It may be something as simple as ‘you never tell me you love me anymore’. After I remind her that ‘never’ is so absolute, and is probably inaccurate, she then adjusts her statement to reflect ‘I can’t remember the last time you told me you loved me.’ And that she wants to hear him say ‘I love you’ at least once a day. I continue to explore with both their views about each other, and what they want from each other; it is clear to me the guy wants the relationship to continue. He doesn’t want it to end.

So, I’ll assign homework. Something for each of them to do to improve their relationship. I’ll remind each of them that no one is perfect, that there will be mistakes made regarding their homework, but the important thing is whether or not they are at least partially doing their homework.

When they come back, usually they both report being successful completing their homework assignments. And here’s another area where we guys screw up. The guy comes back, proud that he’d done what his wife or girlfriend had asked him to do, and expecting the relationship to be ‘on the mend’, and moving back to ‘being normal again’. The wife though, says something like, ‘I’ve been asking for this for the past 6 months – you doing this just one week doesn’t prove that you’ve really changed.’

So the guy is hurt and pissed. But, is able to recover and recognize that one week doesn’t reflect permanent change. So, they go back out to work some more, and have success; It’s hit some snags, again usually us guys have messed up a couple times, but for the most part it’s been successful.

Now here’s where we guys screw it up, again. After about 3 or maybe 4 weeks of showing her that, except for a few slip ups, changes have been made, and the wife or girlfriend hasn’t ‘gone back’ to how she behaved in their relationship before ‘problems’ existed, the husband or boyfriend gets really angry and says something like ‘I give up’.

Brilliant. That really helps the relationship, and is exactly what she wanted to hear. Not.

My experience as a couples’ therapist is that in the relationship, the female usually complains about something wrong for an extended period of time before being ‘fed up’, while we guys, if we don’t see change pretty quickly, we’ll say ‘it’s not fixable’ and begin moving on.

Again, I want to say this isn’t true in every relationship. But it is a pattern I’ve seen over the years. So guys, does this pattern sound familiar to you? Is it a pattern you’ve been able to overcome? For guys who haven’t run into this, why do you think that is? What do you think you do that these other guys could learn from?

Communication Blockage

People often come see me regarding relationship difficulties. Let’s face it – we are social beings, and for the most part we want to be connected with people. I do. Most of us do. So if we’re all that interested in connecting to others, why all the problems?

As usual, I have a couple thoughts about this. I’ve been working as a clinical counselor for the past 30 years of my life, in a variety of work environments. In no way does this mean I’m the expert with the final answer, or that I’m perfect. But, along with the years of training I’ve gone through and continue to go through, and the number of people I’ve worked with, it does provide me with some observations, thoughts, and opinions about what I have seen.

I love my wife. She’s a wonderful person who provides me with support and encouragement. We are a great team, and we compliment each other’s strengths. We communicate well with each other. Lots of goodness here. But – we don’t shop well together.

Recently, we went shopping for a number of items to put in our back yard. Sounds like a simple thing, make a couple stops, pick up what we need, go home. We even knew what we needed; we knew where to go and what to look for.

Trouble began looking for light fixtures. It became clear to me that what we wanted wasn’t there, and I announced this to my wife and told her what we needed to do. I felt some tension between us after purchasing the lights, but didn’t say anything because I was sure I’d made the right decision for us.

We then went to a nursery we both like to look for plants. After pulling in the parking lot, we noticed a goat in a pen behind the nursery, and my wife being the animal lover she is started toward the pen to pet the goat. My thought was, ‘that’s a smelly goat – she pets that thing and she’s going to smell like the goat, and we’re not here to pet the goat, we’re here for plants’. So, in my infinite wisdom and with much compassion in my voice, I said ‘we don’t have time to pet that goat – let’s find plants’. We found all the plants we needed and returned home.

Later, we sat down and talked about the tension between us.

What happened between us happens a lot in relationships. People have different agendas and goals; and this is ok. Problems arise when either one person doesn’t clearly communicate his or her agenda or goals or they are not acknowledged and incorporated as part of the agenda or goals for the couple.

My point: My wife and I had different agendas regarding shopping. I did not take time to ask her opinion or discuss what she wanted – instead, I decided I knew what my wife wanted to have happen, and I knew what needed to happen to get lighting and plants. What I failed to do was talk to my wife. A simple thing that would have taken maybe 5 minutes and our outing would have had a completely different outcome.

Couples often find themselves in arguments, at odds, and becoming disconnected emotionally from each other because they don’t take the time to talk, listen, to or acknowledge the other person’s agendas or goals. Each is too busy trying to make their point, neither listens to the other. Who’s right and who’s wrong becomes what’s most important. Or, as in my case, one person thinks they know what the other person wants or what‘s best for the other person.

Talk, and listen to each other. Pay attention to what the other person says. Try and put yourself in the other person’s shoes, or see the issue/problem from the other person’s perspective.

Are there things my wife could have done to help the situation? I’m sure there are. But if I spent my time and energy talking to her about what she needed to have done differently, she would have felt attacked; she would have felt as though I were saying that it was entirely her fault.

Instead of pointing out what the other person needs to do differently, look at yourself. What do you need to do to improve the relationship? Typically, each person knows what he or she could have done to prevent an argument. And when each person looks at himself/herself to make changes rather than point at what the other person needs to do, positive change occurs, and the relationship wins.

[Editor's Note: The editor of this blog is Dennis's wife. I chalked this outing up to the difference in the "hunter" and the "gatherer". I wanted to do something that goes against Dennis's moral fiber: I wanted to look around...browse. I left the house with a general idea of what I wanted; I was not on a mission. I wanted to pet goats, gets some plants, maybe stop later for a milkshake...Dennis was on a mission. The objective: obtain needed items and exit the shopping area as soon as possible. Neither of us was wrong in our approach; we just didn't determine whether we were hunting or we were gathering before we set out.]